Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

November 28th (Thursday) We awoke to quiet and stillness. Through the night the wind had progressively gotten less and by early morning it had died off completely. It was a beautiful glassy calm, sunny, cold morning. We went out to check our prawn traps, and it almost felt warm. The air was still quite cold, but because their was no wind, it felt warm in comparison to the last couple of days. On our way out in Kiki we noticed a large area on the glassy water that looked weird. We went over to investigate and found that it was a large thin sheet of floating ice. We saw a couple more areas of ice on our way, and I imagine that fresh water must have had a chance to freeze overnight, and then had gotten lifted up and carried away on the morning tide. Between our two prawn traps we got 47 keepers. Interestingly, if you remember how many large females we were getting in Seaforth Channel, out from both Mouat and Wigham Cove, well here we only got one female in each trap. That’s a huge d...

November 27th (Wednesday)  The Northeast winds howled throughout the night, but we managed to sleep quite well considering all of the noise. It was not a motivating morning to get up, as it was freezing outside with a negative temperature wind-chill, and only nine degrees inside. Once we were up, the fire brought the temperature back up, and we got ready to head out to the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. Our tender jumped around beside our boat in the chop as we were getting in, and the wind nipped at any exposed skin. Once we were up into the woods, on the trail to West Beach, we were completely sheltered from the wind, and stepping out from the trail onto the beach was a whole different world. The water was calm, only small swells rolled in, and the sunlight made the water look a gorgeous turquoise colour; it almost looked tropical, except for the dusting of snow on the sand.  Any area of sand that had not been touched by the last high tide was frozen, and the ...

November 26th (Tuesday)  It was a crisp, cold, sunny morning, and we headed out in Kiki. Looking across Kwakshua Channel and up to Mt Buxton, we saw the beauty of the fresh dusting of snow.  Fresh snow on the mountains When we got back to the boat, we did some projects and cleaning. By the time we had finished and put everything away it was getting dark, and the wind had picked up from the Northeast. We were forecasted to get up to 45 knots, and were hoping that the waves would not pick up too much. It looked as if the wind would funnel out of a north-facing bay and then whip around the corner at us. If that remained the case, it would be similar to how the Southeast winds had come in, and the waves would not have time to build. When we came into our main living area we got a fire going. The boat had had time to really cool down inside, and it took quite awhile to heat back up fully, especially with the wind howling around the hull. 

November 25th (Monday)  In the morning, as the sun was rising, the sky was clear with little drifting clouds catching the light from the sun. It was two degrees in our cockpit. About a half an hour later the sky was dark, and although we had turned our lights off inside, we now turned them back on. It began to rain; two degrees and raining was not very motivating weather.  We had a good, long Spanish session with cups of tea as the rain showers continued, interspersed briefly by sunny breaks and rainbows. There has been at least one rainbow here almost every day since we got here. In the afternoon, the rain stopped and the sky became more reliably clear. We headed out in Kiki to set out our Prawn traps. We had been crabbing since we got to Pruth Bay, and on the way out we pulled up our last crab trap to put it away. We had not set our prawn traps earlier because of the strong winds, so this afternoon was a good opportunity. The wind, while planing in the tender, was quite...

November 24th (Sunday) It was a wonderfully, beautiful day; one of those days that is one of the reasons we chose to stay on the central coast for the winter. In the morning the sky above us was clear and towering cumulus clouds dotted the horizon. The light from the rising sun illuminated the edges of the clouds to the east, and this illuminated edge remained longer than it would at another time of the year because of how long the sun now remains at such a low angle.  Two separate cumulus clouds passed over us, each being preceded by wind and then a passing heavy shower before the sky was blue once again. Last night the stars were out when we went to bed, but during the night we awoke to the sound of a particularly strong gust of wind and the sound of driving hail. A few minutes later, and it was quiet once again. As the second rain shower passed over us in the morning, we sat it out in our cockpit all ready to head ashore. Amazingly this was the last rain shower until after...

November 22nd and 23rd (Friday and Saturday) The gale arrived overnight of the 22nd, accompanied by heavy rain. I found out that Pruth Bay, where we are anchored, the Calvert Island Lookout, Mt Buxton on Calvert Island, and Koeye across Fitz Hugh Sound, all have weather stations operated by the Hakai Institute. The live and historic data is presented online and available with recorded wind speed and direction, gust speed, precipitation rate, temperature, etcetera, all of which is refreshed every couple of minutes. It was neat being anchored in Pruth Bay, with wifi from the Hakai Institute, to be able to check the wind and gust speeds for those different locations during our gale. Although we were not as well protected in the anchorage from the southeast winds as we had hoped, and we did get gusts of over 30 knots in the anchorage, the lookout, which is close by on the exposed side of the island, was getting almost 50 knots. The anchorage here has good holding in mud and a nice depth ...

November 21st (Thursday) It was a beautiful, pink sunrise, although they say, "pink sky in the morning, sailors take warning." The VHF weather forecast agreed with this saying, and they were forecasting another gale with rain coming overnight. We pulled up anchor and headed out of Kisameet Bay. We rode the ebbing current, and intentionally hopped into the faster flowing "river" flow out of Burke Channel that we had noticed yesterday. We made good time down to Hakai Passage where we continued to ride the ebb out through the incoming 2-3 meter swells before turning into Meay Inlet. At this point our speed dropped as we fought the ebb current for the last bit of our trip into Pruth Bay on Calvert Island. The rain had just started as we finished anchoring. On our way to shore in Kiki we set our crab traps within the bay. We had a nice walk on West Beach in the rain and wind. After walking the whole beach we stood in the lee of some rocks, out of the wind, and...

November 20th (Wednesday) The forecast was for light winds in the morning and picking up from the southeast near noon. We headed out early to do some fishing, hoping to take advantage of the calm winds. The one fish that we had always wanted to catch, and never had, was the Halibut. We had never really targeted them, and so we decided that here would be a good area to give it a try. Halibut like sandy, gravel bottoms, and Burke Channel has a lot of both.  There are several ways to fish for Halibut, and the one that we chose to try was the one that seemed to have the best rate of success. You put a piece of bait, we used herring that we bought in Shearwater, on a hook, and about a foot back from that you put a weight. You drop the line down to the bottom and keep the weight either just off of the bottom or just resting on the bottom, with the idea that you can still feel what’s happening. Then you wait until you feel something -- that’s the hard part. We definitely lost a few ...

November 19th (Tuesday) In the morning we packed ourselves a hot lunch, and headed ashore in our kayaks. Yesterday, after going to the lake, we had decided to carry our kayaks up to the lake so that we could explore the area. We chose not to bother deflating our kayaks, and instead decided to carry them up. The trail wound this way and that between trees and over old fallen logs, so we were not able to simply carry the kayaks over our heads as we had done at Sager Lake. Instead, we carried them, one at a time together, one person at the front and one at the back, so that we could weave our way along the trail. We carried one kayak part way, put it down beside the trail, went back and got the other one, hiked on past the first one a ways, put it down, and went back. In this way we leap-frogged our way up the trail until we made it to the lake. It was a beautiful, cold, sunny morning. We paddled the sunny shoreline, Jason trolling for trout the whole time.  Although we ha...

November 18th (Monday) We pulled up anchor in the morning and said goodbye to Wigham Cove. I imagine we will be back at some point as it was a very nice anchorage which offered us great protection from strong southeast winds, plentiful prawns, and Dungeness crab. Can't beat that! We motored past Bella Bella and out Lama Passage into Fisher Channel. We had been hoping to sail down to Kisameet Bay, but the northerly winds were not strong enough.  We came into Kisameet Bay and anchored at about 13:00. It had been mainly clear overnight, and we could see the moon and stars out of our hatch. This morning it clouded over, but it was not a thick cloud cover, and by afternoon it began to break up.  We put our kayaks in the water and paddled over to the river that was flowing out from Kisameet Lake. Leaving our kayaks on the pebble beach we followed the trail that led us along the river to the lake. It was impressive how fast the river was flowing. It was a raging mass of ...

November 16th and 17th (Saturday and Sunday) Well the 16th was the day of the forecasted storm of up to 50 knots. We had decided to remain in Wigham Cove as we felt that it would be well protected. We were not sure where the wind or gusts might come in, however, so we decided not to stern tie so that we could swing on the hook as needed. Throughout the day we were very surprised by how light the wind was in our bay, and also by where it was coming from. We had guessed that it would either come in through one of two lower areas in the land, or in through the entrance and wrap around into our bay. All of these areas point roughly south to southeast, and since the forecasted wind was southeast we thought these were good guesses as to where it would come in. We had anchored with this in mind, although we were in an area where we were prepared for any direction of wind. However, we were very surprised by the fact that the wind was coming in from the north. It was not much wind, but it w...

November 11th – 15th 9 (Monday – Friday) Over the past few days in Wigham Cove I did not write for the blog, as each day passed without presenting a story. However, I found myself still writing in my daily journal, and looking back over the days, I noted that some interesting things did happen. When we first got to Wigham Cove we set one prawn trap out in about 475 feet of water. We were hoping that since we were in the same channel that we caught so many prawns out from Mouat Cove, that we would also be able to catch prawns here. We also put out one crab trap within our cove in the deepest hole of about 90 feet. We are always curious to see what we will get in our traps, especially the first time in a new area, as we have come to know that what we get can change dramatically from area to area.  When we first pulled up our crab trap it had only been out for a couple of hours. We had set it, then gone out to set our prawn trap, and then done some exploring before coming back ...

November 9th and 10th (Saturday and Sunday) On Saturday the wind shifted to be more from the south instead of from the southeast. Our point of land gave us some protection, but it was not as good as when the wind was from the southeast. Luckily the wind was not too strong, so it was not an issue. It rained most of the day, and we stayed inside and focused on our indoor projects. We had a delicious lunch of crab and mayo on toast; it was so simple and so perfect. On Sunday morning we woke up to a beautiful clear sky and calm winds.  After listening to the VHF weather report we decided to head out of Higgins Passage. The swells were small, 1-2 meters and the winds were to remain mainly light for the day. As of the night, however, the winds were to pick back up again to 30-40 knots, and strong southerly winds were forecasted for the next day. We decided that although our protection was good from the southeast, it was not great from the south, so it would be best to not be her...

November 7th and 8th (Thursday and Friday) Thursday was the beginning of our gale. The southeast winds came through Higgins Passage just as we had guessed, and we watched as waves rolled past our point. We seemed quite well protected; stern tied and tucked in close to shore around the point as we were. It rained for most of the day, sometimes very hard. We had a very nice rainy and relaxing, inside day, with pancakes for brunch, and lots of reading time. On Friday the rain came in showers, and the wind was less consistent. Still we seemed well protected. We went out in the morning to check our square crab trap, and we reset our round one. We checked them three times through the day, moving them each time. We kept five Dungeness and one Rock Crab. It was very interesting how localized the crab populations seemed to be. One place that we put the square trap we caught only Rock crabs, in one area we got nothing, and in another area the trap was full of Dungeness. All of these different a...

November 6th (Wednesday) After lunch we headed out to check our deep-water traps. With the forecasted gale we wanted to have our traps brought in, just in case the weather was such that we could not go out and check them for the next while. On our way out, we saw a sea otter, which is always a treat because they are so cute. When we pulled up our prawn trap we did have a few prawns, but there were also a few that had been chomped in half. When we went to pull them out and release the fish that was in the trap we saw that the fish had a part of a prawn in its mouth. We have had this type of fish in our trap before, and we think that it might be a Threaded Sculpin, but we aren't sure. It has barbed hooks that stick out from the sides of its head, and they always get caught in the net of the trap when we are trying to release it. It also creates an amazing amount of slime, which makes it very hard to handle. There were also some hermit crabs, a purple coloured prickly starfish, an...

November 5th (Tuesday) There was a gale forecasted for Thursday, and yesterday we had found an area within Higgins Passage that we would be able to stern tie and hopefully be out of the worst of the wind. So, in the morning we pulled up anchor and moved about one nautical mile, and re-anchored and stern tied ashore. We were hopeful that this would be a good area for us to be in for the forecasted winds. It was a beautiful morning. It was clear blue sky, and as the sun came up it made the fog retreat. After doing some little chores on board after moving our anchor spot, we headed out kayaking. It had been a while since we had been out kayaking, and it was nice to be paddling again.  The visibility in the water was perfect, and we could see the bottom even in quite deep water. We were seeing Kelp crabs, Rock crabs, Dungeness crabs, Sea Slugs, Starfish, and many other creatures. We saw a mink swim ashore ahead of us. Then as we watched the rocky shore we saw that the...

November 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) I didn't write much for a couple of these days because there wasn't that much to tell.  On Saturday it was raining and we decided to stay home. We had a lovely day of reading, writing, guitar, Spanish, and baking. On Sunday the weather was nicer, and we pulled up anchor and headed out of Mouat Cove. We motored out Seaforth Channel, past Ivory Island and out towards Susan Rock. We went out and around Susan Rock before turning north so as to keep the swells on a good angle to our boat. We headed up into Higgins Passage at the north end of Price Island, and anchored in one of the bays on the eastern end of the passage. We went out in Kiki before sunset to set our traps. We put out one prawn trap and one crab trap in deep water, and our other round crab trap in shallower water within our bay area. We were hopeful that maybe here we would get lucky and get some crabs. Monday was a more eventful day. It remained cl...